Back from the Dead
by 01cheers
Summary: Short and shameless piece of Guy wish fulfillment fluff set in a post-series finale AU


This twist (or a similar one) has been done by others, sometimes at great length, and very well. I only wanted to take a quick look at a moment in time. Prompted by Shezan, who asked me to write another story with this particular pairing ;)

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**_Back from the Dead_**

Hell does not feel like it is supposed to.

There is no fire and brimstone, no cauldrons and whips. No screams of fellow sinners or laughter of demon torturers, but an eerie silence. He must be in purgatory. There is heat, but it feels like fever burning him from inside, not flames scorching his skin. There is nothing but fever and darkness, and claws of pain digging at his flesh, and the dry ache in his throat. For that matter, it feels just like being alive.

Except that sometimes in that murky haze, Guy feels fingers trailing through his hair, running along the scar on his cheek, stroking his hand, slowly, as if absent-mindedly – and thinks that he must be dead after all if such mercies are afforded him. A misguided angel must have perched itself by an undeserving sinner's side to sweeten his fate.

But there is something else, too; those soft, gentle hands bring the occasional relief of damp cool cloth on his face, the comfort of cradling his head as water is poured into his mouth. The nimble fingers unwrap the soaked bandages from his body and bind him tight again with fresh fabric. He _must_ be alive then. Or could this be a delirious fantasy, could he be lying in the castle tunnels still? Is Robin still alongside him – or has he had time to escape – or did he escape only to die?

"Robin?" – he is not sure if he says it aloud or if the croaky whisper is only in his head. He is not sure if he is asleep or awake, alive or dead. But when he says the next words, his throat explodes in searing pain, and that and the strange, raspy sound of the words mixed with ragged breathing finally tell him that his time to die has not yet come.

"Robin, where are you? You must leave, save yourself… you cannot die…"

"Shhh", someone soothes, and puts a finger to his lips – and a short while later bitter liquid is poured down his throat and he lapses into sleep again.

It goes on forever. He is trapped in a strange place between reality and delusion, dreams and nightmares. He calls for Robin still, albeit no longer sure if the other man survived.

"Robin, if you cannot make it, I know she is waiting… she always loved you," he breathes, smiling at the thought of an angelic Marian basking in the eternal sunshine up above. "You will be happy together in heaven."

But the only answer is silence, and the whisper-light touch of those disembodied hands.

Then a day comes when he snaps out of another delirious dream and stares dumbfounded at what coalesces, for the first time, into the solid reality of shapes and colours and angles and light.

He is in Locksley.

He knows the bed, the hangings, the walls. Even his crest is still affixed above the fireplace, as if he never left – for Nottingham, or for the Holy Land, or for the forest. Guy sits up, panicking at the thought that he may have gone insane and irredeemably delusional, but at that instant pain tears through his chest and stabs at his back, and when the dark spots clear from his vision, he is still in the same bed, in Locksley.

And somewhere nearby, someone is talking.

He is alone in the bedroom, but there are muffled voices in the hall below, two women, by the sound of it – he cannot hear what is being said but suddenly feels as if fire were coursing through his veins as one of the voices resolves itself into Marian's silvery tones.

What madness is this, what unbearable sweet torture? It _cannot_ be real, but Guy had no idea that an insane delusion could be so delightful. But he cannot stay in its seductive embrace; he must sober himself with the truth, and so long as he survived, he must continue to bear his cross.

He crawls out of bed – for _crawling_ it is, to the point of going on all fours – and across the floor to retrieve clothes from a chest, the effort of lifting its lid almost making him pass out – and half stumbles, half slides down the stairs to the hall.

It is empty; the voices have moved into the courtyard, but the heavenly sound that reminded him of her still beckons from beyond the door. With a final effort, Guy pushes it open –

And falls on his knees on the porch, his eyes wide and transfixed.

"Marian," he whispers, as if the name were a prayer, or a magic spell.

_What a great way to die_, he thinks before his mind gives in and he collapses unconscious to the ground.

***

He does not see her running back to him, does not hear her call his name in a desperate plea.

But she does. She cannot help it. Nor, for the life of her, can she understand it.

***

She _wanted_ to hate him. Saved by the grave by a grim ironic twist – local robbers who heard about two Christian nobles buried in the desert and braved the heat to plunder their bodies before they ran screaming away when they heard the dead woman gasp and brought the news back to town – she spent long and painful weeks convalescing as the Bassam household, under the diligent care of Saffiya bint Bassam whom she had come to know as Djaq, and in all that time, she wanted to rejoin Robin and she wanted to hate Guy of Gisborne.

Fate had afforded her neither.

She left the Holy Land a few weeks after Richard's convoy when her wound had finally healed enough to allow her to brave the hardships of travel, secure in the thought that once she caught up with the king's retinue, she would be swiftly on her way to England and Robin – only to be disappointed by a string of misfortunes. First there was a shipwreck that brought her and her fellow travellers, unharmed but considerably shaken, to the Italian coast, then there was the long and tedious wait for gold to arrive in exchange for moneylenders' bills, then just as they were about to join King Richard, he fell prey to his enemies' greed and vindictiveness and his own erstwhile arrogance when the Austrian Duke Leopold whom Richard had slighted in Acre took him captive. The royal retinue scattered, and Marian spent interminable weeks in Calais trying to persuade the cautious and indecisive William de Merlai in whose train she was travelling to make the crossing to England. Her beloved husband awaited her there, and her great offender – she still could not think of Gisborne as her enemy – was likely there as well, to be punished by her indifference, resentment, and above all by the imminent bliss that was to follow her and Robin's reunion.

Except that indifference did not quite describe what she felt. Nor did resentment, for that matter.

There was bitterness, for sure, a great deal of it – for his cowardly surrender to Vasey, for his dogged attempts to kill the king, for his apparent refusal to distinguish between good and evil… but she found herself unable to hate him, or even blame him for stabbing her. She had seen his face the moment before he did it, and she had seen it after it was done. She had watched him die inside at her words, had watched the realization that her previous kindnesses to him and her seeming willingness to accept his love had been grounded in pretence sink in and burn him inside out - until he lashed out like a wounded animal that knew not what it did… and she had seen the heartbreak, sorrow and regret that had smothered and crumpled him in the next moment. It had been insanity, and she had provoked it. In a way, she had already dealt Guy of Gisborne his worst punishment twice, by telling him the truth and by dying as far as his knowledge was concerned. So the best she could do now would be to ignore him. It would be what he deserved, and neither too kind nor too cruel a fate. But surely they would see each other still.

She tried to suppress the satisfaction she felt from imagining their meeting, both his certain shock at her survival and his fresh pain at her being rendered forever unattainable. _Serves you right_, she thought. She tried not to think why she imagined that scene as many times as her forthcoming happy reunion with Robin, if not more.

It was a long and tedious wait before she could leave France, but it was finally over with the happy news of the success of the ransom negotiations and Richard's imminent liberation, and a month later, Marian was finally home.

What a homecoming it had turned out to be.

***

As she reached Loughborough, two dozen miles from Nottingham, news came of a siege laid by Vasey, who had been believed dead by Gisborne's hand. Despite everyone's conviction, the fiend had survived and was back to wreak havoc on the city he had once ruled. Marian's heart faltered when she heard that Robin and the gang, which inexplicably also included Gisborne, were leading the defenders. She reached Sherwood at a breakneck pace and raced frantically to the camp, only to be met by an unfamiliar friar and a man her age who claimed to be Robin's half-brother and who took her to see her beloved just as he lay dying on the forest floor. She comforted him, summoning calm and resolve she did not know she possessed to make his final moments those of happiness and peace. But with Robin gone, there were no more barriers to her heartbreak. The world had gone black.

She knew little of what went on about her in the next day and a half, her every waking moment spent in hysterical sobbing. She refused to eat, or talk, or let herself be comforted. She had cheated death and arrived in England to be with Robin at last – and had barely arrived in time to watch him die. It seemed at times that her grief would suffocate her, and she fervently hoped for it. But in the end, when she could not cry anymore, she merely felt empty and numb and did not care if she lived or died.

Then at Robin's funeral, while she was barely able to breathe and stood supported by Much, a bony blonde woman showed up with a heap of flowers and shocked her with endless uncontrollable wailing over her dear lover Robin – and even though Marian had not believed that her pain could get worse, it suddenly did. And then the wailing harpy started cursing Robin's previous mistress, Gisborne's now-dead sister who, she shrieked, had killed him out of jealousy. Marian felt chilled to the core. She and Robin had loved each other – how could he have betrayed her, even if it was only her memory, so soon? For the first time Marian knew what it had felt like for Gisborne when she had thrown her rejection in his face.

So when Archer edged his way awkwardly out of Robin's funeral feast saying that he had to go to Locksley to see to his dying brother whom he had pulled out of the rubble earlier that morning so that he would not die alone, and Marian learned, to her shock, that Archer's other sibling was that same Guy of Gisborne, she found herself offering to go with him. Her own pain had given her the charity that pushed her to perform a good deed towards Gisborne. She would assure him, in his dying moments, that she was alive and bore him no ill will. She would tell him that she had forgiven him. She would tell him that she cared still, no matter what she had said once.

She was surprised at how right the decision felt.

She was even more surprised to hear from Archer that Robin and Guy had made their peace before the siege, and to hear his sketchy but somber tale of the family feud that had once torn them asunder.

But nothing could compare to her surprise at feeling her heart twist in pain when she saw Gisborne, his face gaunt and grey, peaceful and yet profoundly sad – and to her stunned realisation that his dual wounds had been inflicted by a dagger and a sword.

It was staring at her in scarlet bleeding clarity, the gruesome symmetry of the wounds he had dealt her now visited upon him. But instead of vindication, she only felt sympathy. By all rights, she should have wanted him dead, or was entitled to it. Instead, she found herself unable to leave his side, save for a frantic trip to Nettlestone to find Matilda the healer. She stayed and kept vigil at Guy's bed, helped clean and bandage his wounds and stayed with him through the delirious nights, listened to his entreaties to Robin, watched his reverent, almost blissful expression when he alluded to her – not daring even to pronounce her name as if he was afraid he would sully it – and through it all, she wanted him to live.

In a way, caring for him helped assuage her own pain over Robin's loss. She was also forced to admit, as days passed by and her crying fits ceased, that the news of Robin's liaisons, instead of multiplying her sorrow, had instead cushioned it, despite the initial added anguish. She loved him still and wished him well in heaven, she was even glad upon reflection that he had found solace – but she also felt as if she could leave him safely to eternal bliss while she stayed among the living. And in unguarded moments when her thoughts drifted back to her stay at the castle, to the many encounters she had had with Guy, to his awkwardness around her and his eagerness to please her and his constant need of her, she found herself caressing his unconscious body until she would catch herself and clasp her hands firmly in her lap.

Surely she could not have any attachment to him… could she?

***

She was doubly relieved when Guy had recovered enough to prove that his life was out of danger. It meant his survival, and it also meant the end of her vigil. She had become too confused and frustrated by her conflicting feelings and thought is best to leave before he could set eyes on her, for fear that she might betray too much weakness in his presence. She had talked to Matilda and was preparing to leave for Ripley Convent to stay there until she could rebuild Knighton with the rents of her estate, despite Archer's insistent invitations for her to stay in at Locksley that were later supplemented by offers of money, materials, and workers. Truth be told, Marian wanted to spend time away to clear her head, for she feared that she was becoming too attached to a man she ought to avoid.

But when he staggered after her into the manor courtyard, the look in his eyes, of desperation and happiness and hope and pain and a plea for forgiveness, as if his whole life had brought him to that moment and ended there, as if the world beyond _her _did not exist, shattered her resolve in a single instant – and the fear that he had harmed himself too much by chasing her sent her hurtling to his side with entreaties for him not to die that he would have given anything to hear but, in his comatose state, was unaware of.

***

When consciousness returns and he calls for Marian even before he opens his eyes, the appeal is met by the same soft hand he recognises from his delirious days wrapping around his fingers.

"I am here", she says, "I do not know why, but I am here".

And when he hears those words and starts weeping, and takes hold of her hand to bring it to his lips, she does not pull it away.

_fin_


End file.
